Twenty-three hours had elapsed since the start of the challenge. Sui was busy trying to make underwear that had additional effects but found herself continuing to fail. The only reason she knew that something was wrong was the message.

Garment Complete. Magical Garment Creation Failed.

Which was no real help in determining what they were. Sui insisted they were much more comfortable than normal, but by the time she got to that point, it was already early morning and she hadn’t slept, so her claims made to Aife and Trina weren’t taken seriously nor properly retained.

For Aife and Trina’s part, Aife alongside Kanina mostly just acted as moral support for Trina who was answering more and more questions as the time went on. Trina wanted to call it quits more than a few times, but Aife managed to convince her. If said convincing included illicit means well… Sui was sewing in another room and wasn’t paying attention anyway.

At this point, Aife was tired, and Kanina was sleeping, but Trina was perhaps having the worst time out of everyone. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hands were shaking so much that even though she felt like she knew the answer to this next question, she was less confident in actually reaching out to the words and touching it.

“A-A-fie” croaked Trina, throat dry and eyes watering “I think I have to call it here. I can’t go on anymore. I can hardly keep my eyes open and my h-hands are shaking I can’t even select the answers”

Aife, looking somewhat tired but remarkably more put together then Trina “Just one more then.” Said Aife. Trina nodded shakily and reached her hand up. Her choices were between, petroleum, ash, fungus. With Soap, as the target word. Trina’s shaky finger managed to select ash, before completely ignoring what the next question said, pressing down on the confirm questions button.

Congratulations. Wave 8 complete.

That was all Trina needed, as soon as the message appeared, she collapsed in place falling asleep instantly. Aife picked up Trina and went to move her to bed, when she remember Sui was next to her. Looking to her side, she found Sui, head against her shoulder, seemingly asleep but with a pile of dancing thread that just seemed to be repeating various shapes. There was one set making a circle, two making a pentagon, and one making a triangle.

“Sui?” whispered Aife not wanting to wake her if she was actually asleep.

She wasn’t though, and she responded in the same hushed tone. “Yes Aife?” of course, Sui wasn’t exactly lucid at this point. She was answering purely on reflex. This wasn’t the first time Aife had spoken to her, after getting lost in sewing, and it wouldn’t be the last. Aife of course, recognised the tone instantly.

Sighing, Aife adjusted her hold on Trina, making it so that instead of a princess carry, she was now draped around her neck somewhat. Trina’s legs were supported and her face was in Aife’s hair which seemed to further calm her down, allowing Aife to more easily hold her. Once this was done, Aife said. “Time to sleep Sui”

“I dun wanna” said Sui. Despite her words though, she moved by instinct, leaning away from Aife and standing up slightly allowing for the larger girl to grab her like a sack of potatoes. The first time this happened, Aife felt a little bad. Now that she’d lost count of the number of times this had happened; it was simply par for the course. Sui remembered it in the mornings as well, and never once complained about the treatment, not minding at all the way she was carried. It was comfortable enough, and she didn’t really care.

Aife then, two girls in hand, first made her way to Sui’s new room, thankful for the unlocked door that she simply pushed open with her foot. There was a brief glance back to the table in search of Ito, but didn’t see the spider anywhere. “Ito. You around?” asked Aife. When called, the spider in question popped out of Sui’s exposed neck and saluted Aife before returning to her place under Sui’s skin. Seeing this, Aife continued into the room.

She gently put Sui down on her bed, and then used one arm to tuck her in, making sure that the covers were on properly and Sui was secured by them. Sui’s arms instantly started searching for something, and Aife sighed, moving the pillow sideways so that it would be caught by Sui’s grasping arms. Once in hand, Sui pulled it close and stopped almost all movement.

Satisfied, Aife quietly left the room and took Trina to their own. Aife looked at the sheets and frowned slightly, before shaking her head, and pledging to just wash the sheets sometime soon. Aife placed Trina down lightly, and as soon as she did so, the brunette started to twist and turn, reaching out towards Aife’s form.

Aife smirked a bit, and put Kanina down in the pile of old towels on the bedside table she’d set up for the rabbit, before climbing into bed with Trina and wrapping her arms around her girlfriend. It wasn’t long before she too finally succumbed to sleep.

-----

Sui was the first to awake. It was early in the morning. Very early. It was around 3 am, and it was still quite dark. Sui just summoned a ration bar to eat to pass the time while she waited around.

Aife was the next to follow. Sui heard her getting out of bed around 4 am. Sui slipped out of bed and into the hallway behind Aife. “How did we do?” Sui asked.

Aife smiled as she led Sui further away from the sleeping Trina. She’d been asleep for close to sixteen hours at this point, and Aife didn’t want to risk waking her up early even knowing that fact. In Aife’s mind, Trina had done a lot of good work, and deserved the rest. Completely ignoring all the effort, she herself had put in a few days earlier with the sixth wave, and was thinking that Trina really deserved the rest.

“We managed to pass Sui. I’m surprised we didn’t get anything special actually. We didn’t hear any specifics just that we passed” said Aife.

That makes sense. Those questions weren’t terribly hard even for me, and Trina is much better at word play and other strange things, so it makes sense that she’d be able to so easily manage. Sui was of course, completely ignoring the fact that normal people didn’t stay up all day and night doing crazy things, simply accepting that as par for the course. “I’d expect nothing less,” said Sui.

Noticing the tone Aife sighed and said. “You’re thinking it was easy, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” said Sui

Aife sighed. “Do you think she did a good job?”

Sui tilted her head in confusion. “Of course? I mean we passed right? Surely that classifies as a good job, right? When our lives are supposably on the line, keeping them is quite the feat.”

Aife just sighed again, and shifted topics. “How did your underwear experiments go? I wasn’t paying too much attention really”

Sui’s mostly passive face gained a small frown. “They were unsuccessful. I’m not sure what I was doing differently and I made quite a few to test. I started with a completely plain pair, but that failed of course. Thinking that it had to be the embroidery, I made some underwear with a bear face on it…”

Aife winced but Sui wasn’t even looking at her, simply taking the nearby seat and ranting. “Of course, I thought maybe the animal was wrong, so, because I was still making some for me, I put a little cartoon spider on them. I thought maybe we had to be close to the animal? I mean, I picked the raven for Trina specifically, so maybe a spider for me?

“That didn’t work either though, so I thought, hey, I know ravens work, why not try that next? So that’s exactly what I did and it still failed. The next step was making a pair of underwear, intended for Trina with a raven. My thought process was, I’d seen that combination work before so I tried it that way and… still nothing.

“At this point I’m really not sure what else I can do. I have two guesses. Without really knowing what made the dress activated, I think it either means, the garment is too small. Like… maybe they need to be a specific size to hold enough mana to actually do something? Or, whatever it is that makes these ‘enchantments’ work. The other thought is that maybe some cloth is better than others… except I thought I used some of my better stuff for the underwear.

“Maybe that isn’t enough though? I mean, I can lift thread with my mind… I wonder what the chances are that I can find something better?” asked Sui